This tea was an interesting experience. I literally worked through the night last night finishing a piece of fiber art for a show. I was so tired I could barely see and needed some black tea to get me going. This tea had just come and I was very excited to get it so I brewed a pot and sat with it awhile (I had earlier made Stash’s Vanilla Cream and disliked it so much I threw it out. That will be a separate review!).
Well, it’s not that I didn’t like this Golden Moon tea, it had a wonderful minty flavor but I couldn’t taste a bit of vanilla and I ordered it for the combination of vanilla and mint and really wanted to taste the vanilla.
Because I have been researching teas for a book I have a process when tasting tea. I use a large Bodum Press, more than I can drink at one sitting. I have a couple of cups and save the rest for iced tea if appropriate. I never use milk because I really want to taste the tea. I do use a bit of Truvia, the new sweetener made from Stevia but much milder, but that’s all.
Then the stages from hot to lukewarm to cold. Tea tastes markedly different when hot just out of the pot through the various stages as it cools down. I didn’t like it hot. The black tea tasted very strong and the mint was there, but no creamy vanilla taste at all. Not that I could taste. As it cooled to a lukewarm, which I let it do intentionally, the complexity of the flavors started to come forward, a hint of vanilla and something creamy, but barely there. Today — I had saved the rest in the fridge — I tasted it again, after letting it sit out a bit so it was cool but not real cold which also seems to mask the subtleties of the flavors, and I was amazed at how good it really was. The more it cooled the better I liked it.
I will have to give this tea a few more tastings, but it has more to offer than when it was first out of the pot. Sometimes I think you need to give a tea a few tries to see what it really has to offer!
